CIE’s after-gig service deplorable

Sigur Ros take me places, unlike Dublin Bus after the show

All buzzed up after Sigur Ros Coming out of Sigur Ros on Sunday night and we’re all in top post-gig de-stressed order, all glazed far-away smiles as we make for the clearly marked exits. We’re a happy throng still coming down from Jonsi’s soaring falsetto and eerie bowed guitar over Orri’s thundering drum groove.

This enigmatic Icelandic troupe, now seemingly a three-piece, really do take you to other places. Unlike CIE after a gig.

Oh man, why do we have to put up with this crap?

We’d read all the bumph about the no parking within an ass’s roar of the Royal Hospital venue, and the detailed rundown of all our travel options to Kilmainham. Okay, got it,  be there in loads of time and we’ll even obey your ban on umbrellas, even if rain threatens all evening. This is Ireland, man!

Mercifully, we escaped with just a few drops, and Childline did well out of their €5 plastic ponchos.

There’s loads of gardai, even if the lurking threat of some blissed out hippie knocking over your water bottle was as perilous as it got all evening. That was another thing: the vendors had to confiscate the lids from our bottled water purchases. Isis, I knew you were devious, but I never knew just how much.

Anyway, there’s thousands of us streaming towards town.The Luas terminal at Heuston Station is jammed on both sides. It’s gone 10.40 and our last train from Connolly to the sticks is at 11.27. Next one is in 14 minutes and what are the chances of us all getting on it? The loaves and fishes would have nothing on it.

So, no evidence of the gig promoters or anyone else having got on to our public service transport providers to put on a few extra Luas coaches for the people. Or extra buses.  Or any buses. Maybe they did and they were turned down. Public service? Disservice more like.

Taxi? Look at all those people dashing  from the sidewalks on both sides flagging for all they are worth. No, we’re walking.

We’re under time pressure now, and it is some trek when your legs are tired and your lower back is in bits after standing in a field for over three hours.

Eventually do we do get a bus up across from the Dublin City Council offices that takes a few hundred metres off the trip. We terminate at Bachelor’s Walk and have only the guts of another kilometre to get to Connolly for the last train.

Our car is in the train station in Malahide even though we live in Rush. Malahide is on the DART line, you see,  unlike Rush. So, the idea was to DART it  to Connolly, and, smooth as you like, on to the Luas for Heuston.

Hah! No Luas at the Connolly terminus. A punter told us the Luas was terminating at Jervis Street while the new lines are being laid.

Thus did we set out for Sigur Ros a hundred miles away – or so it just seemed.  And back. Remind me to never go to Glastonbury.

— Enda Sheppard